The flag riots are just plain bad for Northern Ireland. Bad for business, bad for foreign investment, bad for community relations, bad for the image of Northern Ireland abroad and bad for the collective future of its people. But I genuinely feel bad for the loyalist rioters.

In a cabinet reshuffle billed as the answer to Britain's economic ills, Prime Minister David Cameron went with the economic status quo: holding tight to the fiscally prudent and the ever-derided George Osborne.

In a move perhaps more unexpected than Marty McGuinness shaking the hand of Queen Lizzie, the Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Ireland's biggest party, sent a representative to an LGBT event for the first time last Tuesday night.